


A Full Deck of Ideas

by Leonawriter



Series: Family AU [4]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Multi, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-02-17 03:36:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 10,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2295263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Like I'm doing with Blue Exorcist, this is a 100 prompt challenge. In this, however, most fics already belong to or refer to one of my pre-existing series, whether I've written much for it or not. Expect appearances from the 5Ds Family/Daedalus AU, TimeFlipped and more, as well as the other Yugioh canons. Please ignore where this work goes numerically in a series' timeline, as each story is additional and many are out of order with each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Veneer (FIP/DR)

Family AU

\---

At first, it had seemed almost like a novelty, once they got their heads around the fact that it was true and real.

They had the unique chance to get to know each other in an entirely new way.

They’d never had family in this way before, and it showed. Things would have been awkward even without these revelations – the merging of City and Satellite, learning to live with one another, coming to terms with how they were still alive when they could have ended up dead, any of them, and some of them had never planned for a future beyond that.

So in a way, it was special. Life was a gift, and they should treasure what it brought them. Family, even the ones they’d known for years already, even more so.

Yet after a while the veneer began to crack, and they would see each other for themselves either for the first time, or ‘again’.

They learned that Rex stayed up late into the night, and would surface late in the day sometimes for that same reason. It was because of this that he didn’t speak much in the mornings, not because he was simply that aloof. It helped, finding that out – although Rex himself would perhaps have preferred not to suddenly find himself being dragged back to his room by his son and nephew one day.


	2. Machine (FIP/DR

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one’s also set in the Family AU, although it could also be Daedalus, not long after the Signer War. Focuses on Rex, and the birth of the reconstruction efforts.

Neo Domino and Satellite were like a well-oiled machine by now. Perhaps they weren’t a _perfectly functional_ machine, but they worked as they were.

The officials, such as they were, did not like the idea of anything changing, even when the ideas were proposed to them by the long-standing Director.

“It won’t work,” they said, hardly listening. “No one will want to endorse the project. Who’d want to, when the end result would be knowing that those markered criminals could come and go from the city however they please?”

“It’d be bad for business, that’s what it’d be,” said another.

“It’d cost thousands to rebuild that area if we even _got_ that far!”

“I wouldn’t trust them – Satellite folk are rough, all thieves and gangs, and-“

They were stopped by the sharp _thud-thunk_ of Rex hitting the heels of his hands against the table, the sound differing one hand to the other. The executives did their best to ignore this, but nothing could be said for their internal reactions. It was a clear sign, after all, that their director wasn’t someone to be messed with.

A sign, as it were, that it wasn’t only the City and Satellite that were like a machine.

“We,” he said pointedly, gaining some calm back after the outburst, “owe those people. We owe our riches to their poverty. We owe our safety to their destruction. All that separates where we have lived since that day, is where we were standing when _it_ happened.”

Rex Godwin straightened, and put his arms behind his back.

“The bridge will be built, and Satellite will be restored. Those already living there will lower the costs of reconstruction by working on the project themselves. If you think on this in terms of the long term, you will gain far more this way than if we kept your… potential consumers… still locked away.”

He nodded, once, to himself.

“Any questions?”

There were none, this time. Nor was there any vocalised dissent.

He left, trying to rationalise out in his head the way that his emotions had taken charge at their words.

How could he be heading this rationally if he couldn’t think clearly?

And yet at the same time, how could he not be unbiased? After all, he had been of Satellite, living there with the best and the worst of them, inspiring hope into the ones who would one day save them all.

But that wasn’t it, was it?

He wasn’t the one who’d been markered, who’d thieved, who’d taken to gangs because nothing and no one else would take him.

That, he realised with an internal sigh and momentary closed eyes, had been his son.


	3. Breakable (DR)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taken for the Family AU (one where Rex is Crow’s father, and Rudger is Jack’s). Daedalus Rising specific.
> 
> Set not long after the Signer war. Focuses on Rex and Crow, but also has Yuusei.

The first time they truly fought, it was over something silly.

Or rather, they saw it as such later on, when they’d had the chance to cool down. Because at the time, it meant everything.

Rex had seen the tail end of a bike stunt that had almost, just _almost_ by a _fraction_ gone wrong. It hadn’t, though. It had just been a wobble. Crow had straightened himself out as though the bike was an extension of himself, but clearly that hadn’t been enough.

“You should be more careful,” he was told. “You should stop acting as though your life means nothing,” came the angry words.

Crow had bit back with the vengeance of one who was talking to someone who hadn’t been there for years, and should have been.

Both of them left with red faces, the same tone of voice, the same stubborn stride as they turned away from each other.

Yuusei found his friend back at his old hideout some time later, staring at parts as though he’d forgotten what they were for. He sat next to him, and simply kept him company until Crow was ready to talk.

“I’d forgotten,” he said at last, an ironic smile on his face that showed that he wasn’t quite his normal self again yet. “How breakable these things are.”

Yuusei took the part Crow had been holding, and took in its faults at a glance, knowing that wasn’t what Crow was talking about even so.

“It isn’t broken, though,” he said. “See? It’s just cracked. And besides, it’s just one part. Replace it, and it’ll be fixed. Good as new.”

Crow sighed, letting his head fall forwards with a short laugh.

“Good as new, huh?”

Yuusei nodded.

“Whatever it is, it probably isn’t as damaged as you think it is… or can be. If the pieces want to work together, they will.”

Crow looked up again, at his friend, with hurt still freshly in his eyes.

“He doesn’t think I’m careful. Like, what? He thinks I’ve just messed around here all my life? Like it’s some kind of game like the city kids play at with skateboards and bikes?”

He pushed himself up off the ground and stalked over to his bike, the Blackbird, running his hands over the paintwork and machinery. Eventually, he simply leant against it.

Yuusei sighed, and allowed Crow the time to cool off again.

“…You know, he’s probably feeling like you did, back at that time, still.”

“Eh?”

Yuusei stood, dusted himself off, and looked around. Soon, this place wouldn’t even exist to run back to – it’d just become another part of the rebuilt Satellite. Maybe with a plaque, to commemorate where and when the original Daedalus Bridge had been started. But the place itself would still be gone.

“How would you feel if Hikari, or one of the others… if they did something reckless?”

“I’d be _pissed_.”

The answer was immediate, because it didn’t bear thinking about. At first, he didn’t understand what Yuusei was getting at, but then the pointed look got to him, and he groaned.

“I’m not a kid, Yuusei!”

 “…I know that. But as for someone who’s never known you. Doesn’t know how well you can take care of yourself. After what happened here back then…”

“So you’re sayin’ I’m Hikari.”

Yuusei sighed, and tilted his head somewhat.

“We nearly lost you, Crow. We _all_ did. And if I saw you do something I _knew_ was you being reckless, when I know you… I can’t say I wouldn’t be pissed at you, too.”


	4. Odds and Ends (DR)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taken for the Family AU (one where Rex is Crow’s father, and Rudger is Jack’s). Daedalus Rising specific.
> 
> Set not long after the Signer war. Focuses on Crow.

“Hey, I’ve got stuff to do over the water, you guys! Be back in, uh… well, however long it takes me!”

Crow had several comments from the room – mostly bidding him good luck with whatever it was this time.

It wasn’t even the first time he’d been back to Satellite, although it got easier and less awkward with every trip. Travelling via private helicopter had never been something he’d ever planned – or dreamed – of doing, especially not just to pick up some occasional bits and pieces.

Yet there he was, getting ready to head out again, prepping the Blackbird for another hard landing onto the familiar tip sites of Satellite. Home sweet home. Rather, what _used_ to be his home.

He gave the area a good once over to make sure there was no one watching for him to let his guard down, or who’d attempt to follow him and make ready for an ambush after seeing him arrive in style, but after nothing came up – he picked his landing sites carefully, thank you – he revved the bike and headed on out.

He spent the day flitting from place to place, sticking to the shadows and the safe spots he knew so well. Speed wasn’t necessary this time – it was precision, and knowing not only where he was going, but where he was, and where the best place to stop was so that he could be close to the mark and also not have his bike stolen.

Five spots down and he was thinking he was doing pretty well. Three more, and he was humming. Another two, and he realised that it was getting dark, and he had two choices – call for a copter to take him back to the mainland and risk being mobbed while it landed, or stay the night here.

It wasn’t a hard choice, really.

After the too-soft beds of both the hospital and then first the penthouse and afterwards the mansion itself when it was realised that the penthouse was actually drawing more attention than it was worth – regardless of what Jack thought – the familiarity of his hideout, still as yet untouched by the restoration project that was only just being born, was a relief and a balm.

Sleep, as it were, came easily.

Dreams, however, did not. Perhaps his subconscious had picked up on how despite the fact that he was home, his kids _were not there_ , and the similarity to _that night_ was a little too much.

He dreamed of flying, and falling. Of monsters, and of gods, and of little whispers at the back of his mind that in his waking hours were gone, long gone.

He woke up with tears on his cheeks, damning himself for dreaming such things, and with aches he’d almost forgotten had always accompanied such a stiff bed.

A throat cleared, and he spun to face the threat, flowing instantly into an easy fighting stance, but it turned out there was not really any need.

Redfaced, he realised that he was face to face with Rex Godwin, and relaxed his stance, even if he was angry at being caught out like that.

“The hell’re _you_ doing here? Don’t you have people you get to pay to go make measurements and stuff like that now? Or are you just here so you can babysit me?”

Crow did his best to pay the man – his _father_ , and that was a thought that’d take some getting used to – as little attention as possible as he picked up his things.

At first it was just the few things he’d come with. Then, he realised that this might be the last time he got the chance to take anything, and spent longer deciding what would stay and what would be going with him.

“You didn’t come home last night, and you didn’t call to say why.”

 _Home_. It was weird, in a way that made his insides turn and made his feet want to run, but more oddly still made him feel safe. It was the safe feeling that scared him the most.

“I was picking up some odds and ends. Nothing you need to worry about- hey!” Godwin had started to open up the Blackbird’s ‘hidden’ compartments, revealing first one not-so-legal item after another. “Those are _mine!_ Mine an’ the kids’! I don’t what kinda clout you’ve got, you don’t go taking my stuff!”

He realised that he probably wasn’t going to get very far just by brute force when his hand, which was going to yank Godwin’s own off of his things, came down onto the man’s _metal_ arm. But he wasn’t going to let that deter him.

All he got for his troubles, however, was a mere raised eyebrow and… was that supposed to be a smile? If he hadn’t known Yuusei, he of the rare smiles and subtle expressions for so long, then he probably wouldn’t have noticed it, or recognised it for that matter.

“Perhaps you may have forgotten, but the way that those of Satellite live life is not _entirely_ foreign to me.” He gave Crow a considering glance. “I do hope, however, that this does not mean you intend to continue such practices in the long term now that something is being done about the situation here.”

He let go when it was obvious there was no intent to actually _take_ anything, and straightened everything back up the way it had been, both stolen decks and ruffled feathers.

“I _found_ these, thanks. Fair and square.”

He didn’t see Godwin’s expression, but it had to be an interesting one.

“And if Security wasn’t clever enough and careful enough to protect them from you, then that was hardly _your_ fault… am I right?”

“What? I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. None at all.”

He looked back for an instant once he’d picked up a blanket – more for sentimental value than the idea that he or the kids would ever actually need it ever again – and paused, blinking, wondering when on-edge sniping back and forth had turned into banter.

“…Is that everything?”

He was getting too used to this if he could figure out the difference between ‘normal’ and ‘amused’ and ‘banter’ and ‘awkward’. Definitely too used to it. And that one just there definitely had ‘awkward’ in it.

Crow considered his options. He hadn’t just hoarded away cards in this trip and the last few, but more or less anything he could get his hands on that he’d regret leaving behind.

“Yeah. Let’s go. D’you think there’d still be breakfast, or would Jack’ve eaten it all?”


	5. Crash (TimeFlip)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TimeFlipped AU this time! Story comes from an undetermined reset timeline.

She was woken up by the explosion of sound, and the smell of something burning in the air. Perhaps for anyone else this might have been bad enough, but she was several stories up in the air and no one _should_ have been able to reach her save from coming up from inside the Arcadia building itself.

Who…? Who, then, could have done it?

She reached her balcony, to find what certainly _looked_ like a human being. But the cursed mark on her arm was reacting, meaning there had to be something inhuman, something _wrong_ about this person.

He groaned, and sat up, looking as though he was in pain, but he’d survive. Looked up at her with black-gold eyes that made her instantly suspicious, but then grinned – grinned, as though she was an old friend and in no danger at all.

Ha – as if she even _had_ friends.

“Sorry about that,” he said, as though he did this every day. “I was trying something out and it didn’t work like I expected. Had to crash, and saw your window. You don’t mind, right?”

Don’t-

“Do you have _any idea where you are?”_

The man chuckled, and she felt like she was five again. She didn’t like the feeling at all.

“You’re Aki, right? Izayoi Aki?” He must have known her from the academy days. Her blood ran cold. “I’d know that face anywhere. Sorry I can’t give you my name, but – well. I can count on you for the night, right?”

And he was still there, still expecting things of her. She couldn’t form words, because she didn’t know what to say to this invasion of her home.

“I’ll just take up the sofa. Won’t take anything.” Only now did she realise that the marking on his face looked very much like a criminal marker, but red instead of orange. “I’ll be gone in the morning, so you won’t have to explain me to anyone.”

And he smiled at her again.

She didn’t know how to get rid of him other than throw him out of the window – which was murder, flat out, which she wasn’t prepared to do – or call security. And to tell the truth, she was curious.

She’d fallen asleep working on her classes and studies, so hadn’t been in the sensory deprivation pod. She decided not to fall asleep this time however, going into the room with her actual bed in it, lying down and yet keeping her eyes open.

“Breathe,” she heard as she drifted off without meaning to. “When you ride it, the wind’s the same thing that you’re breathing. There’s nothing to be afraid of…”

She woke up from dreams of riding the wind, and saw that her window had been opened again in the night.

_How-? Could he have possibly…. No. He can’t be a psychic duellist. Divine finds us, trains us, looks after us._

_But then how did he know me like that, and with that look, and those clothes, and those eyes, and the way my mark reacted – who_ was _he?_

She shook her head and tried to put the thoughts away. But a seed of doubt and curiosity had already been planted, right from when he’d smiled at her, completely unafraid.


	6. Grave (DR)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in the Daedalus Rising AU. Also inspired by the memorial, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in London.

The idea started in a small room, partway through the construction of the new bridge. Crow had just come in, while Yuusei and Jack were already there.

Tired, and in more ways than one, he had collapsed into one of the familiar chairs of his childhood, content that he could show it rather than pretend he was alright as he would for anyone else.

Maybe if it’d been another time, or another place or even another subject, he might still have put on a cheerful façade until he felt comfortable with himself enough to share. Right then, so much had happened that he simply hadn’t the energy to.

“You staying here tonight, then?”

Crow nodded, and Jack, who’d asked, huffed.

“Any particular reason?” Yuusei looked up from his book – something about science that he’d taken from Godwin’s library in the mansion, probably – concerned. “Things didn’t go badly, did they?”

“Nah.” He shook his head, the sudden turn of the conversation confusing Jack.  “Didn’t think he’d actually open up about any of it, though. But he did.”

“Ah,” said Yuusei, smiling and going quiet again. “That’s good.”

“Would either of you explain what’s going on?!”

Crow laughed, aggravating Jack further, but although he could have taken it further, he gave in. After all, he’d had Jack, Yuusei, Martha and the others far longer than anything he’d found out more recently. They were _family_. They deserved to know.

“Suzume.” Jack stopped as he was about to go on a tirade or take Crow by the shirt, perplexed. “I figured if I knew about one, I _should_ know about the other. So, I asked.” He laughed at himself. “Kinda didn’t expect to get anythin’ out of it at first, though.”

Jack sat down again, apparently moody. But a few minutes later when he spoke up again, he just sounded subdued, rather than upset.

“I… never really thought to ask. All of those tournaments and trophies – I never realised they didn’t somehow try and remember them. They just tried to _forget_.” The last word was said like a curse. “And I didn’t say anything.”

Yuusei, who hadn’t turned a page for a while now, put something between the pages to act as a bookmark of sorts, and closed the book, putting it down.

“Then maybe now’s the best time to. We’re starting anew. Besides – they were the people who could afford to forget. We never could. Let people believe what they want about what happened. But the least we can do is to remember the names.”

…

What had started with one name became a list. One page became ten, became twenty, became a database stored on the twins’ computer system.

Each name was attached to a story, even though all they could take was the name.

Crow’s mother was at the top, along with Yuusei’s parents, simply because they were remembered, not just because they were among the first to die.

They were originally after anyone who’d died during the event just over seventeen years ago now, although gradually there were additional lists created, for those who had died not immediately, but sometime later, directly because of it. Injury, illness, heartbreak.

When Rex Godwin found out what they had started, more names were added to the list. Some, they realised, should have been on it from the start. Others were entirely new to them.

_Rudger. Hana. Watsuki. Kazuki. Yamato. Fujiwara. Patrick. Mitsuki. Richard. Michelle._

The list went on.

With more names, more people became aware of what was happening. More understood that this needed to not just be fixed with the bridge and the reconstruction work, but _remembered_. So that down history, no one could say it hadn’t been important.

Too many had died on that day for enough graves to be dug. For many, the cracked earth and rushing in of the sea had been all they would ever get.  For some, even their name was forgotten.

But when the walls of the bridge became the memorial itself, engraved with each name, when they were _remembered_ , when Carly wrote articles and they all noticed people talking with each other, knowing that they had something in common through old losses…

There was something to be celebrated, in that.


	7. Echo (Flipped)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set early-ish in the Flipped AU.

Walking through the hallways, his footsteps echoed back at him, almost as though there were other people in the building sometimes, but never quite. Not unless one of the others happened to be coming toward him, wandering nearby on their own business, and when they were he could always tell, by now, who was who by the sound of their feet.

Rudger walked fast, powerful and long strides as though he wanted to look like he was in control but didn’t want to linger anywhere too long. Much as he didn’t like their esteemed ‘leader’, he couldn’t blame him. He let on too easily how familiar to him the place was.

Misty treaded carefully. At one point he would have disdained her for it – they had an easier time in Old Momentum than most out in the better parts of Satellite as a whole – but after getting to know her better, he realised she wasn’t a bad sort. She just wasn’t used to it.

When he came, Demak’s steps were those of one who knew harder terrain. As a result, sometimes they were slow and steady and powerful, but other times you could hardly hear him at all.

They made an odd bunch. It took a good long while to learn to work together, with most of them preferring to work alone, and all having their own agenda.

The ‘team’ was just as much an echo as their footsteps were, and Kiryu tried not to dwell on it too often.

When he did, he was reminded harshly of the team – the _real_ team – he’d left behind. Yuusei, Jack, Crow. Four people for four people.

If he’d had the heart to, he would have laughed at the irony. Sometimes, he almost felt like it, but always he realised that the danger in laughing was that it would open him up to other emotional responses, and he wasn’t ready to face that yet.

He’d left them behind, and all he had left were echoes.

Echoes of the team, echoes of their goals.

Maybe if he ever let himself laugh, he’d end up laughing at however the gods expected a bunch of broken misfits who’d turned their backs on the world to save it.

Maybe the laughter, too, would just echo back at him, with no one to laugh alongside him to fill the absence in the air.


	8. Soft

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one could work either as a stand-alone idea, or as a tag onto the 'Accidental Miracle' story I've got posted up here. Kiryu/Carly.

In a world full of harsh lines, dirty floors, sharp words and laughter, a hard reality, she was… soft.

That was the first word that came to mind. Not that he would have said so to anyone, either then or afterwards. Although he might, perhaps, have said it to _her_ , if he remembered, and if it came up.

There was nothing of vengeance about her the way there was with the others. No determined scheme. It chafed, but if he looked, actually looked at himself, he’d realise that it was because he was jealous, and wished he could have some of that same lack.

She cried, too. The sounds drew his attention, and he _hated_ them. Hated them _because_ they were soft, and soft meant weak. He was stronger than that. He’d learned not to cry, learned not to show he was affected by the words and violence of the world. Life messed you up, chewed with you and then spat you out a changed person, and he _knew_ that.

She didn’t, though, that or this was just so much more than she was capable of coping with.

When he realised it was the latter, that she knew the world was cruel and just preferred not to focus on that as much as she could, when she looked at him and saw a _person,_ he found himself sitting beside her the next time he heard those soft sobs coming from behind her door.

She looked up, and there it was again. Soft eyes, out of focus from tears, looking at him like she was some kind of beaten dog, or cat.

He huffed and just drew his knees up to his chest, and pointedly stared at the wall.

When she first hurt herself due to falling off of her bike, she winced and touched the areas gingerly, no matter that they were both already dead. Limped when her legs ached.

Soft, _soft_. She should be stronger than that!

And yet when she showed that it was just inexperience when she kept going, he saw it _as_ her strength. She got back up, kept on going, kept pace with him.

When he helped her back up, she was soft. Soft like the puffed out feathers of the small birds that he’d seen from time to time, trying to pretend they were giants.

 _Maybe soft is alright,_ he found himself thinking one day, and maybe it was then that he first wondered if some of her softness had worn away at him, because he found himself _feeling_ soft, when he thought of her.


	9. Destiny (DR)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daedalus Rising AU specific. Rex often things destiny has it in for him.

Destiny, Rex firmly believed, had it in for him. And if Destiny were some kind of sentient being of a sort, then it must have therefore been laughing at him from day one.

He wasn’t entirely sure when that would be – his childhood maybe, when he decided to become a scientist, or perhaps school or college or even the day he was accepted into the MIDS program. They were all good points to call a ‘start’.

After that, it could be easy to see how he might think that his life was some kind of romantic tragedy of sorts. Everything he attempted failed – and often spectacularly.

He’d tried to go along with the path that seemed to have been set out for him, and nothing he’d ever done had made any difference.

He’d tried to forge his own fate, with his own two hands, and had only narrowly been averted from making what he’d later learned would have been a massive mistake.

Even now, there was a gnawing at the pit of his stomach when he dwelled on that too much – because of his choices…

Yet they – Crow especially, but the others also – would be quick to say that they were making their own paths by the bonds they had with others.

Perhaps that was why it hadn’t worked as he’d wanted when he’d tried the same thing. With no one to tie him down, he would have flown too high, reached too far, been burnt. Or, scientifically, frozen himself solid with none of the warmth of even just one slight, real friendship left.

And perhaps he’d needed the ice-cold shock to his senses that fighting his son had given him.

He would wonder, briefly, even so. Reiterate in his own mind that it could have been him, it _should have been him instead_ , and maybe that was why he was so vehement on maintaining the care – in many ways – of the revived Dark Signers.

He could have been one of them. Or, like Rudger, he might not have come back.

He could distract himself with his work during the days, but during his nights he could be found pacing in his home, worrying away at might-have-beens and things that never were.

On the days when he hardly saw them at all, he felt as if he could almost hear the mocking laughter of fate, destiny given voice.

Today, however, he had come back to the mansion to find things different, out of place. At first he’d been suspicious, but then…

The first thing he’d seen had been orange hair from behind one of the more comfortable sofas. Bemused, he stepped quietly around, only to find that Crow wasn’t just relaxed there, but asleep, a card still loosely in his hand.

Rex carefully picked the card up and put it onto the coffee table next to the sofa, easily within sight but not where it’d be sat on or worse during the rest of the night.

It was at times like these that he thought that destiny might instead be laughing _for_ him, somehow encouraging him on.


	10. Coffee (FIP)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Family AU. The prompt was ‘tea’ but this is what the prompt inspired me with.

Rudger had, in the time since he’d regained his life, taken to a small routine.

Coffee happened in the morning, always at the same time, in the same spot in the mansion’s kitchen. Granted, it was a very large kitchen, given the size of the ‘house’, if you could call it that, and the table he sat at was big enough for more than one person. Plenty big enough for more than two.

He’d arrived back late the previous night, clearing up some unfinished business. While he’d been a Dark Signer, certain things hadn’t been important, and he’d both shunned the thought of them and left them to gather dust.

Now, however, he was the only one who knew those things had existed, and where they were.

Photos, hard drives, name plates… his work was made short due to knowing each and every place he’d tried to hide things from himself. Reminders of who and what he’d left behind, then. Now, they were all he – they – had left.

Upon returning, he’d dropped everything off in his rooms and made for the shower immediately, needing to wash the dust and smells and atmosphere of Old Momentum out from his clothes and skin and hair again.

So he’d had a late night. He wasn’t going to have another like it. He wouldn’t need to, hopefully. He’d been kept awake by fears and the fear of nightmares after that, making it even harder to sleep even when his head hit the pillow.

Meaning that it was a two-coffee morning, and he was now on his second.

He was dimly aware of the door opening and closing behind someone, but assumed it was either Rex or Crow, and if not them then someone to see his brother on business matters, and no concern of his.

He didn’t look up until he heard the distinct sounds of coffee being made for the third time that morning, and saw his face but younger.

Rather, the back of Jack’s head.

Unable to help himself, he let out a sigh, sure that he had already been noticed and unsure whether he was being ignored or if Jack simply didn’t deem his presence to be important, and if so which he would prefer it to be.

When Jack turned around and they caught each other’s eyes, Jack grimaced, but hesitated.

Rudger went back to nursing his coffee, sure that he was about to be left alone once more.

Instead, there was a shifting of material and the screeching of a chair being moved as Jack made to sit opposite him.

He opened his mouth, but in the end couldn’t think of anything to say. So he didn’t say anything.

But at least the longer they sat not saying a word as they drank, it a bit less, a _bit_ less of an uncomfortable silence.

He finished first, and spent several minutes staring into his empty coffee mug at the dregs still at the bottom, as though they’d hold answers to questions he didn’t even know yet.

“I moved out of the penthouse,” Jack said, as he put his mug in the sink and made to actually leave this time. “There were starting to be too many reporters. That’s _it_.”


	11. Belong (FIP)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Family AU. An empty house becomes a home.

Rex didn’t quite understand when the too-large mansion had become so… populated.

Admittedly for the first few weeks there was a lot of noise, what with the reconstruction work going on in the area where the temple had been, but it had usually been far enough away to not cause _too_ much noise and bother, especially since it was entirely possible to spend most, if not all of the day, on the other side of the building.

The first permanent addition had been his brother, because his old home had been where Satellite was now, regardless that it hadn’t been a slum back then at the time he’d been living there. Rudger had nowhere to go and he’d been written off as dead for nearly two decades, so he’d been keeping a low profile at Rex’s home until his paperwork was corrected and made up to date.

That was odd enough. It was strange having his brother back at all, let alone living in the same area after so long. After thinking of each other as _enemies_ for so long.

Then, there’d been Yuusei. An unexpected addition, since the Godwins had both caused so much pain to the boy from so early on in his life, but still he came. Although it did seem he was more a frequent visitor with sleeping rights, and most of his time was spent in the library, reading voraciously as though he’d been starved of words.

When the thought came to him, Rex couldn’t help but wince due to how apt a metaphor that was. He hadn’t had to live in Satellite long – he was blessed, in a way, he supposed – but it should have been easier to remember that they had few books, and fewer still of the scientific nature he’d managed to collect together. The boy’s father would have been horrified if he’d been kept away from his books for so long.

He never would have expected Crow to have started going in and out of the mansion as easily as he had, as early as he had. He’d never truly expected the boy’s forgiveness, so just being treated more or less calmly and without contempt was more than he could have hoped for. Much of the time he didn’t know what to say or how to react in the boy’s presence any more though, if he had ever known at all.

Crow had made it plain that he was just planning on using the mansion as a temporary stopover before he found someplace of his own, but although he was perfectly fine with that, it had still warmed him the first time when he’d heard the sound of children in one of the kitchen areas, and Crow telling a story as he cooked something up. A… rather _familiar_ story, he’d noted. He’d left almost them to it rather than make the situation awkward, but his presence had been noted, and he’d been dragged in – involved, even, despite his protests – and a part of him had felt deeply moved by the fact that his son felt comfortable enough with his presence to allow him near his adopted children.

Jack had come pouting and sulking, but of his own accord and with good reason. After his defeat, journalists had attempted one thing too many in order to get an interview – which was only a shame, given that his nephew had already one to one reporter, and had made it plain he wouldn’t be giving any others – and had needed an escape.

An escape that had resulted in his staying under the same roof as the rest of his family, whether he accepted the term for all of them or not. In fact, it had taken a good long while for Jack and Rudger to be on what could properly be called speaking terms, and in that time Yuusei had moved out – assuming he had been moved in in the first place – and Crow with him. Jack truly was as stubborn as father in that way.

And little by little, they opened up.

Aki, Rua and Ruka, the remaining other Signers, were invited over. Often, without Rex’s own knowledge until he came back from a day’s work as Director and found the twins and the redheaded psychic duellist in the house. He’d had to have a quiet discussion with Miss Nagisa on the subject of how public and private lives were going to stay separate unless they _all_ agreed to certain material being made generally known, but she seemed to take it well in stride.

He didn’t know when the mansion had stopped being the place he simply came back to at the end of the day and had started to be home and a place to _belong_ , but he didn’t mind the change at all.

…

AN: And now the thought of Crow changing the story of the ‘Legendary Man’ of Daedalus bridge after all that to be properly up to date and dragging a mentally flailing Rex in to play the part is striking me as _adorable_.


	12. Last Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DM-era fic. First one for the prompts that I actually wrote. Yugi/Anzu.

The music reached an all-time high, a crescendo that made – hopefully – the audience’s hearts soar, and just as the principal lead sang her heart out in the finale, so too did the dancers around her.

And yet at the same time, the feelings were bittersweet, tinged with the fact that this was their last time dancing this number, the last time the show would be performed. She’d miss these people, this music, the atmosphere – all of it.

But that wasn’t yet. Right now, they were still dancing, still a part of the performance.

After the curtains came down, however, was a different matter – as soon as they were off the stage and no one could hear them, there were hugs and tears and congratulations, compliments of dancing and footwork and costume change all around, reminders of how much the audience had applauded at each and every single scene.

And as it all died down, as she reassured the others that this didn’t mean they’d be out of touch, Anzu found herself smiling.

 _I did it,_ she thought to herself, not for the first time and certainly not for the last. _I really did it. I’m here._

And it felt… _amazing_. All of her hard work had paid off.

Sometime later, as the last stragglers of the audience made their way to the doors and cast made their way out, she kept an eye out as she held her friend’s coat.

Her heart jumped around when she saw him, even though she’d _known_ that he’d be here – he’d _promised_ her, and unlike some, he actually kept his promises, and she’d seen him in the seats while she was performing, but hadn’t been able to show it.

She waved energetically, and it was like the crowds parted for them.

“Yugi! Hey, over here! _Yugi_!”

He turned to her, and she grabbed his arm, dragging him over.

“We’re going out for after-party drinks, and since you chose to only come on the last night, no _way_ I’m choosing between the two. You’re coming with us. Like it or not.”

“I- Anzu, I-“ his protests were cut short, though, and he sighed, resigned but not entirely unhappy about it. “Well, I guess it’s not as though I had anything planned for tomorrow…”

She ignored the wolf whistles, and the fact that they were both turning pink over them, because the fact was that she was going to get drunk in the best possible way tonight, with both her friends and her best friend-come-boyfriend, and he’d still be there in the morning.

They linked arms as they walked along with the rest, and she smiled, basking in the simplicity of it.


	13. New Direction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reconstruction in Satisfaction Town is more than just buildings and homes - it’s moving forward, too. 
> 
> Both canon and Family AU compliant.

It was on record that Crash Town had been a mining resource, and one that had taken on markered criminals as much as – if not more than, due to how the ones concerned knew that so few other places would take them, and so many markered from Satellite were desperate so for something that they’d even aim for the lowest thing that they could get.

However, in the weeks since Yuusei had arrived and had been a catalyst of change, the town had become very different indeed.

Kiryu Kyousuke was currently waiting for two officials, to talk to them about planning permissions of various kinds. It wasn’t as though he’d known any more about that kind of thing than the rest of them up until a few nights ago, but they’d trusted him with the job of talking to these people, so he’d had to learn quickly.

He didn’t _look_ much like any sort of elected town official himself, he had to admit. He was still wearing the same clothes as he had when Yuusei had found him and he’d found his will to live, although they’d been cleaned and _kept_ clean since. There was no badge. No scarf. No headband – he remembered wearing a headband in another leadership role, and although they weren’t bad memories, they were tinged with something bittersweet, and if the idea had come up, he’d have had to say no to it.

His arms were crossed, and his hair was currently tied back in a loose ponytail so that it didn’t get in the way later on, his fringe still hanging loose but not quite covering his own, rather prominent, marker.

He almost considered taking out his old harmonica while he waited, but if he did that then he might get so engrossed in the music that he missed the sound of tyres on desert sand and wouldn’t see them arrive.

The whole thing was worlds away from where he’d been, how he’d grown up. A punk Satellite gang leader who later became an undead force for evil…

Not that anyone who’d not been involved in the last one would ever _believe_ that, though.

Punk kid from Satellite who was stupid enough to get himself markered was bad enough for most. Yet here, he wasn’t alone. He wasn’t the only one with a marker, so none of them looked at each other like any were lesser, unless they’d drunk too much the night before to do their assigned work the next day, that is.

Officials from Neo Domino however were the farthest thing from Satisfaction Town’s populace as could be. They’d judge. They’d tick boxes, and not listen when they spoke.

His stomach had butterflies again. He didn’t know if he was ready, but it wasn’t as though he had any choice.

“Kiryu-niichan! Kiryu-niichan! They’re coming, they’re coming, look – there’s the car!”

His eyes snapped up to the road – West was right, even if he _was_ bouncing like a mad thing – and then narrowed.

Then he sighed, and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Go back to Nico, and be on your best behaviour. Only come to us if there’s something important – but if there _is_ something important going on, _come tell me_. Got it?”

West nodded, too excited to be apprehensive, and Kiryu was slightly envious of his childhood. For a moment, he wished he could have been like that – but then, even if it had been a good, happy childhood, it wouldn’t have had Yuusei or Jack or Crow in it.

It wouldn’t be long now. Into the fray, so to speak.

He knew one thing for sure – he wouldn’t let them leave him and his town with anything less than the satisfaction they deserved.

…

They came out of the car and walked up to the building – the only one with that many people around it – looking like they owned the place, or that the dust wasn’t worthy of being on their shoes.

Kiryu immediately didn’t like them, but he pushed down the feelings of resentment because he knew they wouldn’t help anyone.

“We’re going to need to speak with your representative before we agree to anything,” one of them said with a nasal voice.

Kiryu, right in front of them, raised his eyebrows at them.

“You’re looking at him.”

The looks of confusion on their faces were evident and the reason made clear by a quick glance to his marker, and he found his hand twitching for his holstered duel disk.

“Look,” he said, going straight for the no-nonsense approach. “This was a mining town up until a few weeks ago. Now, it’s not. We’re going to need a _proper_ electrical and Momentum hook-up for general power; phone lines, internet connection, the _lot_. In short, we want to be on the grid.”

“But- but that- the cost it’d be to-!”

“And if you say no, then I can tell my friends in the city with connections to the _Director_ , who to blame if even one of these people ends up needing emergency help and no one could get here in time. You’d like that, would you?”

He kept a strict poker face as he watched their faces go bright red, and then pale considerably.

They didn’t need to know what kind of connection his friends had with the Director – or even whether they did at all. Yuusei and the others were still _connected_ , and that was all that mattered, that and the fact that the real life connections would still do the same job, but the alleged one would carry more weight.

They were heading in a new direction, all of them, and going places they’d never been before. These were just the first steps.


	14. Born (AM)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kiryu Kyousuke had been born precisely four times. - Goes with the Accidental Miracle fic I'm currently working on. Slight spoilers for that, but nothing major.

Born

Kiryu Kyousuke had been born precisely four times.

The first time had been just like any other ordinary human birth – to parents, in a hospital, with staff rushing around to make sure that the crying baby is healthy and looked after.

He couldn’t say he remembered much from that period. He’d been little, and it all seemed so long ago and far away. So far from what he was used to now that it might as well be a dream. Although sometimes he liked to think that he could see a glimpse of someone with pale blue hair like his in the edges of his memory, and a soft song as he went to sleep.

He didn’t remember being ‘Kyousuke’ much, though. Didn’t remember being called that, or whatever else they might have used. No real memory of birthdays or Christmases or play school, although as he grew up he’d have an odd feeling of déjà vu at the sight of things, and nothing more.

The second time was in the wake of Zero Reverse. Not as though he knew to call it that at the time, of course.

At the time, he’d simply been a terrified four year old – nearly five – who had been waiting for his parents to buy something. They were going to go to see the sea.

The last thing he’d remembered had was turning around and finding that everyone had gone, everyone was screaming, and he couldn’t find his mother. His father had put him somewhere safe, told him that he’d be back soon, and left.

He’d never see his father again, just as he’d never see his mother, either.

He’d been safe, though. By some miracle, nothing had touched him while he’d stayed put, waiting for them to return.

When he realised that he was never going to find his parents again, some part of him died, hardened, changed.

He cried for weeks, until he found a rough looking bunch – if he’d been able to go back in time, he’d have warned his younger self to steer clear of the kids who were clearly nothing more than _bad news_ , but that was then, and he’d just been a kid. He hadn’t understood anything other than that they were nice, they’d offered him someplace to stay, something to eat, something to do.

That was when he started to learn, piece by piece, how to live in this new world. The older kids taught the younger ones tricks. Kiryu – he’d told them his name, but they always called him by his family name so in time he just got used to it – thought they were fun. He found he had a knack for electrics, which they encouraged. He’d singed his eyebrows off more than once with accidental explosions until he’d learned how to get it right.

He’d moved on, learned how to be independent in his own way, and he left them behind. That was who he was, now. Someone strong enough to be on his own, who didn’t _need_ to have people look after him.

Perhaps time was supposed to heal all wounds, but here they’d simply scabbed and scarred, and every so often the old wounds would stretch uncomfortably until he had something to make him forget the pain.

The next time he died was both like and the complete opposite of the first time he’d been born.

Instead of being crowded around by people both professional and not, both loved ones and doctors, he’d been alone. Utterly alone. All he had was what he wore, the memories inside of him, the empty contents of the cell.

Every so often he’d try to remember that dim face again, or the music playing as he slept, but it was harder to see a white face in the dark, and harder to hear when all that wanted to come to the fore were feelings of anger and revenge.

He’d died, and left Kiryu Kyousuke, gang member, behind in the dust.

His next birth had been on the side of the road on the city side. Neo Domino, where he’d never dared step foot, even when dead.

The irony was that he acted more like a zombie in life than when he’d been dead, truly dead. In more ways than one. His head was a mess, his feelings confused. The overall effect was that he ached all over, his heart hurt, and he found himself running.

The fourth time he was born was when he was told he was going to be a _father_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Just to make you aware, I've now added the initials of each fic AU any of the chapters/prompt fics these are relevant to. This one, for instance, goes with the fic 'Accidental Miracle', so the letters 'AM' are in the brackets. 'FIP' stands for Family In Progress, 'DR' for Daedalus Rising etc. Although with the Flipped/TimeFlipped storyline, they have fewer words, therefore it's a word rather than an initial.
> 
> I hope this makes it easier to recognise which story you want to read.


	15. Phone Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Canon-compliant, more or less. Post-series. Scoopshipping.

She was woken up by the phone ringing – her mobile, the one she carried around with her everywhere, not the one out in the main living area with the computer. She’d opened her eyes blearily, reaching blindly out for her glasses, and then hit the table before realising it wasn’t an alarm.

She stared at it. The screen was lit up, showing her the time – who’d be calling her at this time of night? It wouldn’t be one of her editors, and no one in their right mind would think she’d be able to follow up a story in her nightclothes, so…

It had to be an emergency, then.

She picked the phone up and hit accept just before it would have gone onto voicemail.

“Carly?”

She jerked upright instantly, going from answering the phone as though still asleep to being almost awake – not quite, but far more alert than before.

“Jack?!”

She hadn’t heard from him in _weeks_. Months, even. He hadn’t even contacted the others.

 _Yes_ , she was happy to hear from him! But, at the same time…

“Jack, do you _know_ what time it is over here? It’s _half past three in the morning_.”

There was a stagnant pause, and she wondered if she’d said the wrong thing, and he was going to hang up. The thought made her clench her covers with her free hand, and hold the phone tighter.

“…Oh. I. Didn’t realise. The time zone over here’s so different…”

“It – it’s okay! Really! Was there, um, something you wanted to talk about?”

Jack huffed out – she could almost see the expression on his face. Something was bothering him, then.

“Carly, would you… would you say that I’m a good king, now?”

“Eh?” She shook her head. “What do you mean?”

“Back… back when we first met, you said I should be a king for the people. Do you think I’m being that person? I… I’ve been…”

She shook her head, wishing she could remember saying that. But maybe he didn’t need her to remember, just be there.

“Do _you_ think you have been? I mean… you’re making a lot of people smile from your matches, right? And if you’re making people look up to you, then you’ve got to be doing something right! Especially if you’re worrying about it, yeah?”

“Mn! But if I’m spending so much time duelling and dealing with the press, then how am I supposed to know that?!”

“Well… maybe you should make sure you get that time, then.” She’d fought it back, but in the end couldn’t contain a yawn. “If you think it’s important just to have time being Jack, and knowing people…”

“I really did wake you up, didn’t I.”

Carly couldn’t help but laugh, despite the situation.

“Jack,” she said, both amused and exasperated but mainly loving the fact that she was hearing his voice at all, “you can call me whenever you need to. Just… try and make sure it’ll be a time when I should still be awake next time, hm?”

“Hmph. It’s not as though I’d do this a second time, now that I know!”

She smiled – there was the confident Jack she knew.

“Just. Don’t forget you can, will you? Me, and Yuusei, and the others… we’re here for you, whether you want us to be or not.”

“Idiot.” She blinked. It didn’t sound like an insult, not the way he’d sounded when she’d last heard him speak about her. “Of course I know that. Now – go back to sleep.”

“Night, Jack.”

She waited for him to end the call, still holding the phone, as proof that she’d heard from him again, and that he’d valued her opinion so highly.


	16. Loved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aki/Yuusei. She’d come a long way, and it was because of this that she could see how much she preferred the way things were to how they’d been.

Aki remembered what it was like to be with Divine. She remembered why she’d felt so happy, or thought she was.

He had made her feel wanted again. Made her feel like she had someplace to be, someplace she was able to call home after she’d lost the one she’d grown up in.

She hadn’t ever wanted to be apart from him, the one and only person who’d made her feel like a whole person again, and had constantly wanted his approval, the light of his smile and the light touch when he kissed her, as though she were a lady, on the back of her hand.

That was then, though, and nowadays she shuddered at the sometimes intrusive thoughts and memories – even though, as she’d said to Yuusei when it had all come to light, she would never have had that time of her life happen any other way.

Being in the Arcadia Movement and becoming the Black Rose Witch had meant that she had met Yuusei, and through him the other Signers. Who knows if she ever would have otherwise? Better to have lived under a pretence of love and kindness for a while and then found it, than to have stopped believing in it entirely.

A hand touched her shoulder lightly, and she looked up, noting that Yuusei had come back with a smile. A real one.  He set down her hot chocolate onto the table and then sat next to her, completely at ease.

“Jack says he can make next weekend,” he was saying. “It’s in-between matches, and it’s not too far away, so he won’t be missed. The twins are holidaying here anyway… Crow haggled time off. Swapped shifts with someone else on his team. And you know Carly always goes wherever Jack is.”

The last was said with a smile and an amused shake of the head.

She was twenty-two. Only a week to go until her twenty-third birthday, and it so happened that it fell at the right time of year that most of them were able to get together again. The old crowd.

Her _friends._

Sometimes, even now, the thought that she had _any_ filled her with warmth, from head to toe.

She remembered waking up on the day she turned fourteen, to find a knocking at her room’s door, an assistant bowing in greeting as she handed over a formal card and a bouquet of red roses, the same colour as the ones that flowered on Black Rose Dragon, and feeling overcome with emotion when she realised that, again, Divine had _noticed_ her.

The feeling she had when she was with these people wasn’t of being noticed. They’d noticed her long ago. She was simply _there_ , as though they were parts of her body, regardless the distance.

And Yuusei… well, out of all of them, he was the one who made her feel loved, in all the ways her fourteen year old self had dreamed of but never thought possible. Everything that Divine had promised, but had only delivered in a twisted way – while once she had secluded herself, here she was surrounded. Where once she had panicked at the thought of being separated, here… here, she was the one deciding to go away, to further herself.

And what was more, she knew that she could come home whenever she needed to. All she had to do was pick up the phone.

There was nowhere else she’d rather be.


	17. Futile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seto/Kisara. Nothing was as futile as trying to ignore feelings.

He tried to pass by her in the corridors. He tried to not listen when she talked. He tried to not see her when they were together, and not to think of her when they were apart.

None of it worked, of course.

He’d stopped believing in childrens’ stories a long time ago. Things such as the red string of fate were useful only as metaphors, to make a point, and to illustrate just how much he and Yugi were tied together – nothing more.

And yet whenever she left the room, he felt the urge to follow her out, and when he remembered that it wasn’t behaviour befitting of a respectable CEO, to walk out of important meetings like that, he wondered if that was what he’d laughed at Yugi so often for – that kicked puppy look the other duellist always wore whenever he snubbed him, because as much as he hated it, that was the exact feeling he had to hide each time.

“Kaiba-san, will that be all?”

He nodded, unsmiling. She bowed slightly and left, the door clicking quietly as she closed it.

He could have kicked himself. _Stupid._ Not knowing whether he meant his lack of action, or the fact that he was reacting in such a way in the first place.

He was still finding it hard to concentrate on the reports and files he’d been supposed to be going over and checking when Mokuba came in, home from school and ready to take on his other duties.

“Nii-sama? Is something wrong?”

Seto grunted, and rubbed at his forehead, where a headache had been starting to threaten for a while now. Mokuba sighed, worry dissipating.

“It’s Kiseki-san still, isn’t it.”

Grunt.

“You should ask her out for coffee or something, you know,” Mokuba said lightly, sending him a raised eyebrow as he took the reports right from under his brother’s nose, leaning against the desk in a way that had Seto wonder if he’d been hanging around with that Jonouchi for a time too many. The guy wasn’t a _bad_ duellist any more… but that didn’t mean he appreciated the influence.

“She also happens to be my _employee_.”

Mokuba’s shoulders started to shake, laughter showing through in his voice. “Just for the record, _I_ wasn’t the one who’s making the assumptions here. But. You really should. It’d be good, you spend too much time in the office _anyway_ …”

He pointedly ignored that.

The whole root of the problem, really, was the fact that Ryuunosuke Kiseki  was an intern who was only a year older than he was. She had pale hair. _White_ hair. And blue eyes.

She looked just like that girl, the one he’d associated with the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. And it was infuriating – because she _couldn’t_ be the same person.

“Nii-sama, how ‘bout this. _I’ll_ do the paperwork you’re too distracted to do, you go tell her you want to talk with some details – no, I don’t know what, you figure that out or make _something_ , up – and _ask her out_.”


	18. Music

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vague hints of Masumi/Yuzu. Music was an acquired taste.

She’d never been a real fan of music before – as far as Masumi Kotsu was concerned, it was just background noise as she did other things. Hokuto and Yaiba had their preferences, and if she was pushed she’d admit that some types were less annoying than others. But generally, she preferred to be left in peace and quiet.

It started with humming, but although the others would stare at each other and share odd looks, they didn’t bring it up. Masumi was more or less happy, and at the very least she wasn’t annoyed with either of them. But they were sure she would be if they brought it up.

When she’d absentmindedly started looking through old music files that’d been saved and stored, she’d realised what she was doing, shrugged, and carried on, red-faced.

The works of Mozart, Chopin and Schubert might not be the kinds of thing that the others would have picked – so she found herself smiling as would wear her headphones and do her homework.

Music, it seemed, could be an acquired taste.


	19. Erratic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set some time not long after the Signer War. Kiryu-centric.

He’d never had a problem with mood swings, before. At least… not that he’d noticed at the time.

Looking back, he now realised that maybe the problem reached back further than his Dark Signer days, all the way back to when he’d made grave errors in judgement, and maybe… maybe even further back than that.

But now, now was the first time he was noticing, the first time he understood what was going on.

And given where he’d just been, to be honest it _scared_ him.

One moment he’d be fine – as fine as he could be, at the moment, after everything, with what he’d done still stuck in his head – and the next, there’d be a dark thought, or a wish to lash out at the world, or the crushing weight of an untold number of unforgivable things.

_You want to do it, though, don’t you? Tear it down, tear everything down-_

But he _didn’t_. Not anymore. Not even the thought that he had nowhere to go beyond this, that no one could possibly _accept_ him after this, not even the idea that he no longer had a place could deter him from _wishing_ he could do something that would be enough to make up for what he’d done, and from knowing that no matter what he did, nothing would be enough.

He used those thoughts as a shield. One that always came when he needed it. No matter where or when the intrusive thoughts and moods came upon him.

When he found himself having thrown a plate onto the opposite wall of the place he was staying in, throat raw, he clutched at his head, wanting for it all to go away, all of it.

If these moods had caused everything to go sour before, then what would they do now, when everything hung in the balance? Would he ruin it all again – and not just for himself this time, but for everyone else who mattered as well?

No. No, he couldn’t let that happen.

He was a loose cannon – and better to let it fire off where it wouldn’t harm anyone. Better to let the ticking time bomb explode in a safe area… somewhere no-one would notice.

He wondered if they’d notice he was gone.

Part of him wished they would. Part of him hoped they never would.

…

AN: Partially inspired by headcanons I have of Kiryu having manic depression both during and after his Dark Signer days, and also the headcanon I’ve seen that he’s… was it bipolar? I _really_ don’t know enough to more than bluff with that one, but then going on the fact that the character himself doesn’t know anything either and mental illnesses differ from person to person… I figure it’s _something_ , at least.


End file.
